


Raising Hell

by DoWeHaveADeal (SenseAndSilence)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angel & Demon Interactions, Blood Drinking, Dark One Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-17 23:47:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17570255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenseAndSilence/pseuds/DoWeHaveADeal
Summary: The Devil, the Dark One, the Prince of Darkness, the Reaper of Sinful Souls and Lord over all Nine Circles of Hell is thrown into a fit of panic when a prophecy from God tells of his impending doom. If he wants to keep his kingdom and his life, he needs to make sure that the child mentioned in the prophecy never sets a foot into hell.Or: The one where Gold is the devil and is trying to raise Belle as a pious young lady in order to stay evil but love gets in the way.





	1. Lucifer's Eve

_In one year’s time, a child will be born,_

_orphaned in roses, light of the world,_

_yet dragged by sin to the eternal pit,_

_it will dethrone the prince of hell,_

_and there be his undoing._

 

 

After he had heard the prophecy, the twelve months up to his first encounter with the child had felt slower to him than time had felt in thousands of years. Minutes turned to hours in a drawn-out crawl of anxiety and hatred, days becoming weeks only through the seemingly endless nights that combined existential angst with all-out panic. Naturally, he had tried to make plans, tried to use the time that was left to him as efficiently as possible by pondering interpretations and gathering resources. Often, however, he had found himself curled up on his throne, an irate bundle of embers, smoke and glowing eyes, sullenly contemplating his fate.

_It wasn’t fair._

Why was it always him that had to take the fall for someone? And why did it always have to happen so publicly? The prophecy had been heard throughout all nine circles of hell, brought forth as a pervasive hymn by no one other than archangel Michael himself, the arrogant pigeon. He was _fuming,_ mentally as well as literally. Not since the Harrowing of Hell had the Dark One felt this humiliated, this undermined in his authority, and at least back then no one had threatened his life.

Aside from being embarrassing, the heavenly revelation of his downfall had had disastrous effects on morale. His subjects acted cockier than usual, satyrs half-heartedly inflicting tortures only to mount succubi the moment he turned his back on them. Even the reaped souls seemed less desperate. In the first two months alone, he’d had to snuff out dozens of foolish demons that took his obvious preoccupation as an opportunity to challenge his rule. Sheer uncountable was the number of dark servants wiped from existence because they had made the mistake of trying to appease his anger with presumptuous advice, unsolicited pledges of loyalty or offerings of selected souls.

He cared for only _one_ soul, and after twelve months of waiting, the time to find it had finally come. Six days had passes since then, since he had send out all of his spies, determined to have a full list of all children born during the day that was, behind his back, already firmly established as ‘Lucifer’s Eve’. He snorted self-deprecatingly. You could always count on hell to give you bad puns.

Growling, he shot out of his throne in a billow of sparks and purple vapors, quickly striding across the black marble floors of the throne room before turning incorporate again. Guards flinched as he flung himself out of a window richly decorated with mosaic depictions of his most villainous deeds. He heard the fragile glass explode in a burst of sound and let the satisfaction of it press and form him until he was a fiery comet, burning through the skies of hell. Only a few seconds later, he shattered another window, this one simple and unsophisticated, and aggressively smashed into cold stone floors, leaving a sizable crater.

“My Lord,” shrieked a ram-headed demon, quickly backing away from him as he was crouched in a low bow. “We didn’t expect you so early.”

A group of smaller, frightened looking messengers were crouched on an iron chandelier behind him, most of them in the form of bats, though some had chosen ravens.

“Where is he?”, the Prince of Hell commanded to know irritably, ignoring the greeting. “I want a full report. You’ve had days.”

The stress of waiting was taking its toll on him, anxiety eating at his insides. He was ready to make them feel his ire but before he could grab a raven off the chandelier and pluck him like a spring chicken, a hole opened up in the floor besides him. He took a step backwards as the hole broadened, the critters forgotten, and watched impatiently as what looked like a man emerged from it, tall but boyish. He bowed before his master, clad in an inconspicuous, utterly un-hellish combination of jeans with a black sweatshirt. A red scarf hid the scar around his throat.

“My Lord, I have excellent news!” The Hatter exclaimed with forced optimism, a nervous tremor all too obvious in his voice. He straightened from his position on the floor.

“I doubt that,” he murmured sarcastically but gestured for him to speak. “Have you located the child?”

“Not yet, my Lord.” His servant's face darkened as he confirmed his master’s foul mood. “But we have found all of the children that could possibly be meant by the prophecy. Some of them have become orphans rather quickly and we are checking those cases for possible rose connections.”

The Dark One sighed, displeased. Watching over thousands and thousands of children was an organizational nightmare and he hadn’t truly expected more at this point but that didn’t mean that he was content with their progress. The battle had begun and he felt like he was losing time, waiting for his enemy to reveal itself. Where was this bloody child hiding? And how long was he supposed to wait for its parents to die? What if they wouldn’t die until the child was a teenager? It would have time to commit all kinds of sins while he sat here, unknowing and powerless, and then how would he keep it from entering his realm?

The man before him waited patiently while he became immersed in his dark thoughts, the unknown but deadly things this child would do to him a heavy burden in his mind.

“I want to know everything you discover until the child is found, ” he commanded. “And may it be the tiniest detail.”

“Yes, my Lord,” the Hatter affirmed, bowing once more.

Just as he wanted to dismiss him, planning to leave and brood some more, the sound of steady wings disturbed their conversation and a small, snowy owl shot out of the vortex that was still pulsating through the floor. It landed on his mad servant’s shoulder, excitedly screeching into his ear.

The Hatter looked up, his eyes wide with relief and surprise.

“My Lord,” he said, for once looking him directly in the eyes. “We’ve found her.”

  


  


  


  


  


 

It was a chilly night in Maine, a stiff breeze making the trees along the small road the Dark One was standing on rustle and groan. The message of her location had spread quickly, so that when he arrived, there were already dozens of ravens and bats whispering in the branches above him. He approached the gathering of lower demons that were standing near the center of the wreckage and they parted before him, giving him space, their eyes averted.

The child who would be his undoing seemed to be unnaturally small for a human being her age. She was clad in pink rompers, the color making her present situation seem even more on the nose than it was already. The child of his nightmares lay in a thick pile of rose petals, the dead flowers softly encompassing her in a cloud of natural bedding. Around her, the night was full of horrors. The car that had rammed her parent’s flower truck had flipped onto its back, its driver still caught inside, unconscious but shallowly breathing. The Dark One sniffed the air, untangling the smell of dead and dying souls. The driver wouldn’t make it, he decided, but neither of the dead smelled particularly sinful and so their souls did not fall under his legislation. Naturally, he thought, as even God wouldn’t go so far as to send redeemable souls to hell just to enact his coup against him.

The baby was fidgeting, the cold air getting to her, and so he materialized entirely out of the shadows of the night and, with disgustingly weak knees and nervous hands of his human form, carefully picked her up. For a moment, she seemed fuzzy, kicking her legs against his hand but quickly stilled when he pressed her into the safety of his chest, closing his woolen coat around her.

“There, there,” he soothed her reassuringly, “it’ll be warmer in a second.”

He carried her away from the crowd around her, hiding her from the dark gazes of hell as if he feared that they might leave a permanent mark on her.

“Leave us,” he ordered snarled, a command that tolerated no disobedience.

The night quieted around them, the rustling of trees growing slower and lonelier. He stepped around the flipped car of the dying man so that he could look through the destroyed windshield of the flower truck. There was a perfect hole where the child must so accurately have been thrown out of the car with what seemed like at least a few boxes of rose petals. For this to work, the glass had to have shattered before the child’s ejection and the boxes had to have opened at exactly the right time to empty their contents on the street, saving the baby from certain death.

“It’s a miracle,” the Dark One mumbled sarcastically, rolling his eyes at the sky. “Hallelujah, you narcissistic show-off.”

The two humans he could make out through the milky remnants of the windshield were obviously dead, their heads and necks positioned in unusual angles. It seemed to have been a quick death, he thought, as he couldn’t see any obvious signs of struggle, nor smell the particular odor that came with despair and suffering. He could still smell the presence of their souls but it was growing fainter. Carefully, he stepped over pieces of loose metal and plastic until they had reached the driver’s side, where the window was still mostly intact and clear. The truck’s door was painted with the company logo, an unfurling rose above simple but elegant writing. _La Belle Rose._ He scoffed at the overly abundant clues. God had probably expected him to find the child anyhow and was now making a show of it. The old git was trying to take his victory away from him by making it clear that any idiot could have solved this first riddle.

He unfurled his coat from around the baby, where she had fallen asleep in his arms. Gently, he ran a cold finger along her tiny nose, trying to wake her. She made a little cooing noise in protest but finally woke, so that he could prop her up against him, pointing through the window at her dead parents. He wasn’t sure how much human children knew about death, he’d never bothered to find out, but he felt as if she needed an explanation.

“Say goodbye, Belle,” he told the child solemnly, but she instead looked at him with big, sleepy eyes. Again, he was struck by how small she was, but her weight felt solid and warm against his arm. “Your parents are leaving now and you won’t see them again for a long time. You don’t have to worry, though. I’ll make sure that you’re reunited in Heaven.”

Immediately, the night became darker around them. There was a crack of thunder and it began to rain.

“Yeah,” the Dark One replied bitterly and looked up into the sky, determined. “You can go fuck yourself, too.”


	2. The Devil's Work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To my faithful friends: This fic is written by an agnostic. Please don't take an of this seriously and don't let it offend you. It's not meant to offend but as a bit of fun. If you notice obvious mistakes in regards to the details of Christendom, please don't hesitate to comment and help me correct myself.

_One Year After Lucifer's Eve (ALE)_

  


He didn’t understand.

Their planning had been meticulous. The process of raising an innocent, untainted child had been studied by the most intelligent demons of his court. They had deconstructed it into its countless requirements and those requirements had been sorted by the time each of them would take. That time had been divided into units and these units had been allotted a suitable place on the child’s life schedule. He himself had poured over plans for hours, making sure every day, every hour, _every minute_ of her existence would be dedicated to a pious life.

Before they had flown them in from around the world, the nannies, butlers and priest they hired had been vetted for months in advance; all to make sure that the child would stay happy, safe and uncorrupted. The house he had chosen for her upbringing was big and airy, surrounded by a beautiful garden without apple trees. It was situated in a good neighborhood in a town called Storybrook that was not only boring and remote but possessed only a single bar, contrasted against a proud number of three local churches and one convent. Additionally, he had send out dozens of demons whose only job it was to make sure that no sinful soul entered a one mile radius around the child. At this point, raising her should have felt like using a finely tuned machine. It was supposed to be an automatic process.

So why was everything going to hell?

He heard her crying as he approached the house, her hysterical wailing clearly audible as he flew onto the porch and entered through the backdoor. It was locked but it opened as he approached, the house recognizing its owner. When he had bought the property, he had planted a direct portal to hell in the back garden so that he could be on hand in seconds should problems arise. And they had arisen, frequently. The invisible demons that watched the house came to him almost daily now, bringing news of loud noise and bad behavior.

With strained nerves, he sought out the source of today's particular commotion, floating through a beautiful dining hall, cozy lounge and lengthy hallway until he reached the kitchen. There, he hovered in the doorway, taking in the chaos before him.

Belle was in the center of the scene, fastened in her high chair and screaming her lungs out, her little hands curled into fists and her miniature face red with fury. She was crying tears of anger or grief, he wasn’t sure which, and around her, nannies and butlers were frantically scrambling to pick up plastic plates and feeding cups. Organic baby food and a miscellany of fluids were sullying their otherwise prim uniforms. In a simple wooden chair next to her, a priest was desperately trying to say grace. The Dark One watched as he repeatedly had to interrupt himself and start again, drowned out and interrupted by the commotion around him. Grace only counted if it was heard.

Sighing to himself and careful that his hellish presence wouldn’t be noticed, he took a step back and materialized into his human form, acting as if he’d just entered the doorway. Then, he firmly cleared his throat.

“Oh Mr Gold!” One of the nannies exclaimed as she discovered him watching from the shadows. She tried to smooth out her uniform and fixed her matching hat with nervous fingers, a sizable amount of spinach clinging to the back of her hand. “We didn’t expect you today.”

She was a strict looking woman around forty and he had chosen her as head nanny because of her excellent credentials. Not only was she deeply religious but she had watched over the heirs of human royalty before he had hired her to look after Belle. He’d expected better from her and he wasn’t in the mood to be polite. “I’d like an explanation, Ms. Cavendish.”

Ms. Cavendish seemed to shrink before his eyes, her hands fidgety at her sides. Gold watched a piece of spinach slowly dribble down her knuckles and hit the floor.

“Today has not been an easy day,” she pointed out needlessly, her already high-pitched voice even higher than usually. Her face spoke of her overtaxed condition, pale skin contrasting sharply with the deep rings under her eyes. “Ms French just hasn’t been in good spirits. Her sleeping routi-”

“And how is this different from two days ago, Ms Cavendish?” he interrupted, sneering at her. “Or three days ago… or last week. I spent more time here than I do at work because I’m constantly getting news of disasters occurring in my house.”

Although Ms. Cavendish looked appropriately embarrassed, he noted a questioning glint in her eyes and realized that she was wondering about the spy in her house that brought him news of her failure.

“I don’t-” Ms. Cavendish tried to explain something, but his human ears could barely hear her.

Frowning at the incessant sounds of terror around him, he took a few steps into the kitchen and approached the high-chair that kept Belle securely in her place. The moment Belle saw him, her cries lost their volume until they were reduced to exhausted wet gurgles, big crocodile tears running down her blotchy cheeks. She whimpered pitifully and held up her arms, asking him to rid her of her prison.

He lifted her out of the chair and into his arms and she burrowed her face into his chest, too tired to cry any longer. Belle’s behavior followed their usual routine, although he couldn’t explain it any more than he could when it first started. Maybe, he thought, the child had taken a liking to him when he’d first lifted her out of the wreckage a year ago. Or maybe she knew that he was invested in her soul. Whatever it was, he seemed to be the only one who could calm her. Relaxing at the reestablished silence, Mr. Gold ignored the staring nannies and turned to address the priest beside him, whose reverent muttering was clearly audible now.

“Stop, you fool,” he hissed with barely concealed annoyance, suppressing the urge to smack him across the head. “What’s the point of this? Do you see anyone eating?” The priest obeyed but looked disappointed, as if he’d wanted to finish the prayer for his own sake.

“Go, all of you!” Gold commanded irritably but pointed a warning finger towards Ms. Cavendish. “Except you. You stay here, we have to talk.”

While the servants left the room, he took a half-empty bottle of diluted apple juice from the table and settled down in the wooden chair that the priest had left unoccupied. He shifted Belle in his arms, offering her the bottle, and she promptly latched onto it, probably parched from her verbal exertion. For a while, the faint, gulping noise of her drinking was the only sound in the room. Ms. Cavendish waited patiently for him to speak.

As he contemplated the situation, he took a deep breath, analyzing the air around him. It was not an external problem, he concluded. His staff was as pious and sinless as ever, albeit tired and nervous. There was no supernatural corrupting force in the house, either. No ghosts or lower spirits that shouldn’t have been there. Even his demons were far enough away that he could barely smell them. There was only one smell that worried him, he decided, wrinkling his brow in frustration, and it came from the child itself.

The fresh, clean smell of innocence was tainted with faint whiffs of petulance and childish hatred. It was nothing irreversible (he supposed toddlers with irreversible damage to their souls were rare to find) but it was unusual for her age. He assumed that with any other human child it would not be enough to worry about but this was _his_ human child, this was the child that _he_ had to keep from hell at all costs. If he didn’t stop this now, who was to say if in ten years, this child wouldn’t be guilty of the deadly sin of wrath?

Belle had finished the bottle, looking satisfied.

As he took it from her, she burped loudly and a gush of fluid spilled out of her mouth and onto his suit. For time reasons, the Prince of Hell had decided against human clothes today, and thus his suit was just a glamour, an illusion of fabric. Suppressing a curse, he felt how the half-digested pulp slowly ran down his skin. Noting that Ms. Cavendish had not moved a finger to help him, probably because she thought that the accidental spill had already been absorbed by his suit, he counted to ten and exhaled slowly, switching Belle to his other arm in an effort to keep her dry and comfortable.

“Why is this so difficult?” he asked loudly and looked at the professional nanny before him, truly desiring an answer. “Why can you not just keep her happy and well-behaved?”

“Mr. Gold, I am a tra-”

“And for goodness sake give me a napkin,” he interrupted her, careful not to use God’s name in vain in front of the child. Impatiently, and annoyed that he couldn’t simply summon it in the presence of a human, he waved his arm towards a roll of Kleenex on the counter.

Ms. Cavendish calmly handed him the roll of paper towels, apparently firmly re-settled in her composure. As he pressed a handful of tissue to his wet skin, she addressed him again.

“Mr. Gold, I am a trained professional and I want you to know that I’ve dedicated my life to provide the care and guidance a child needs to become a well-adapted and well-mannered adult,” Ms. Cavendish sounded as if she was reciting the credo of an elite special forces unit and Gold had to curb the need to roll his eyes. She continued. “However, and I say this with the deepest respect for you-” she hesitated, “…and your family, I must admit that I have never encountered a child that is this inconsolable in mood. If you are not here, Mr. Gold, there is nothing we can do to calm her for long and I, to the best of my professional ability, have tried _everything_. Where other children have changeable temperaments, it is as if this child has two distinct personalities; one bad and one good.”

She gave him a look that conveyed impersonal expertise, her voice firm and devoid of malice. “I don’t think I am the right fit for this household,” she summarized.

At her words, Gold felt fatigue seize him, the sensation overwhelming to a creature that didn’t normally require sleep. He adjusted his position in the chair and massaged his eyes with a weary hand. “What are you saying?” he asked her, desperate for advice now that his only plan had failed, “What does this mean for me?”

Ms. Cavendish thought about it for a moment, then nodded to herself as if she had come to an agreement in her mind.

“I think you will have to raise her yourself, Sir,” she told him sincerely. He must have looked stricken because she hurried along to explain her conclusion. “I understand that you are a hard working man and you haven’t imagined yourself in this position. Nonetheless, if you have the money to pay me and a dozen more of me, then I image that you have the money to stop working for a while. Maybe the problem will vanish once the girl gets older and you’ll be able to work again, but children come with certain responsibilities. At the moment, I see no other way for you to accept that responsibility.”

Gold looked at her like she was his worst nightmare come to life. “The plan wasn’t to spend much time with her,” he challenged, his shock obvious. He ran a hand through the long hair that he had chosen for himself. “I am not the best of influences, you know.”

Ms. Cavendish remained stoically silent.

“Can’t I - I don’t know, send her to a child therapist or something?” he asked, looking for a way out. “After all, there must be a reason for her behavior.”

“You may of course see a doctor, Sir, it certainly never hurts,” she replied level-headedly, “but I suspect that no medical reason will be found.”

“No?” he asked, confused by her certainty.

“No,” she affirmed, suddenly looking a bit nervous before lowering her voice and stepping nearer, as if they were having a secret conversation. “May I speak freely, Sir, now that I’m leaving?”

“Of course.” He nodded, surprised by her manner, and gestured for her to continue.

She nodded solemnly and came even closer to whisper something in his ear, looking almost bashful. “I think this is the Devil’s work, Sir.”

Gold closed his eyes and exhaled shakily. Then, he started to laugh.


	3. Ice Ice Baby

_2 Years ALE_

The second circle of Hell was reserved for the lustful and in it the sinful souls of adulterers and remorseless fornicators were blown to and fro by violent winds, just as they had on earth been moved by their passions. Gold had always found their destiny to be a fitting punishment but now that he knew what it was like to raise a toddler, he wondered if the eternal temper tantrum of a two year old might not have been a better choice of punishment for those who had overindulged in the pleasures of sexual desire.

When he’d first read of ‘the terrible twos’ while studying his books about child development, he hadn’t taken their warnings seriously. After all, Belle had calmed down almost as soon as he had moved into the earthly realm with her. Following his conversation with Ms. Cavendish, he had reluctantly decided to take her advice and had gone back to hell only to gather his council and make arrangements for his absence. Human life spans dictated that he wouldn’t be gone for longer than sixty to a hundred years, an amount of time that was merely a blink in the history of hell. Glowering and blazing on his throne, he had made sure that the demons he had left in charge knew that he was watching them and that mistakes wouldn’t be tolerated.

Once he’d moved to Storybrook, he had dismissed a total of twenty-three staff members and had only kept on a cook, a housekeeper, and a massive bodyguard that he’d poached from the US Secret Service. There didn’t seem to be much need for the latter and the large, practically mute man spent most of his days standing in a corner watching Belle chew on an assortment of rainbow-colored toys, but the Dark One decided it was better to be safe than sorry.

Within days of his arrival, Belle had become a model child, neither fussy about her eating nor cranky about her sleeping routine. Sure, she required a certain amount of attention and play, but she seemed happy enough as long as Gold entertained her for a few hours a day; mostly by stacking wooden blocks into a tower and letting her destroy it, chortling mirthfully as she did so. At first, he had been disturbed by her propensity for destruction but Mrs. Potts, the housekeeper, had informed him that it was absolutely normal behavior and as Belle’s soul didn’t seem to take damage from it, he had stopped to worry.

His attitudes had changed in a lot of ways, he admitted to himself.

In the beginning, the child had been nothing but a curse to him. If he could have killed it the night of the accident, ensuring that it would join its parents in heaven and be forever barred from hell, he would have. But alas, the Devil couldn’t hurt mortals like that. He could test them and lead them into temptation, yes, but contrary to the belief of some, he couldn’t inflict physical pain or injury. It just wasn’t how this game was played. Thus, his choices had been limited. Either he let her grow up on her own until she’d eventually sin, die, enter hell and fulfill the prophecy by killing him _or_ he tried to raise her as a pious woman, waiting for her eventual death which would free him from all of his existential worries.

Naturally, he had decided to take his chances with raising her.

That didn’t mean, however, that he had any emotional attachment to the little bag of blood and bones. Humans were noisy, smelly little creatures and he had never quite understood God’s obsession with this particular branch of his creation. It was entertaining enough to watch them, he supposed, and for such a short-lived species it was moderately impressive what they had done with the place.

Humans remained human, though.

The same patterns of behavior basically applied to all of them. For instance, he himself had a reasonable amount of knowledge about handling their offspring, merely by watching them do it for thousands of years. One human child could be raised just like another, if one _had to_ keep it alive. There were no intricate differences in energy forms or hatching requirements as there were with demons. And human children were rather robust. In general, there were few mistakes so grave that they would instantly collapse into a pile of smoking ashes.

Hence, he had a sort of instinctive feeling for how to treat his tiny enemy, handling it gently and making sure he spoke to it calmly. He knew that it shouldn’t get too cold nor too warm, neither eat too much nor too little, and that the same principle applied to mental and social stimulation; it shouldn’t feel neglected or bored but it also had to sleep once in a while. These were the guidelines he had to follow and, though he must have looked caring and soothing at times, he had done so rather mechanically.

When Belle had chosen _Gold_ for her first word and everyone had made a fuss about it, Mrs. Potts clapping him on the shoulder in a misplaced bout of pride, he’d been careful not to show his true nature. He’d acted as if it meant something to him, but he had felt nothing.

Five or six months into his work, however, something had changed unexpectedly.

By then, he had become used to the neuronal partiality of his human costume, a fleshly feedback loop that made his mind sing when Belle smiled and made it flinch when she cried in sadness or pain. The mechanism was so simple and so entirely human that he had no trouble separating it from his true emotions. Which was why, when on a cold day in December he confronted Belle with snow for the first time, his own reaction had surprised him.

The little human had been sitting on the porch outside, watching him collect some of the white snow from the garden. Mrs. Potts had bundled her up in three layers of thick fabric and she looked twice as wide as she was tall. In fact, in her colorful jacket, scarf and knit cap, she had somewhat reminded him of a misplaced Easter egg. Belle, largely immobilized as she was by her fabric prison, had stuck out a curious and demanding hand for the snowball he had made her, but had instantly dropped it once he’d laid its icy weight into her palm. She’d let out a surprised noise and he’d chuckled, making her look up from the half-broken ball at her feet. At the complete look of betrayal on her face, his insides had flashed orange.

“No Gold,” she’d said decisively, pressing her tiny fingers into her chest in a gesture of protection. “No.” Her expression had been one of pure accusation, and she’d shook her head as if she was utterly disgusted by his offering.

For a human of barely eighteen months, her rejection had been so absolute that suddenly, amusement had fizzled in his core, tendrils of smoke curling themselves playfully around his essence. When he’d realized his reaction, he’d sobered up quickly, instantly knowing that something irreversible had taken place.

“Hm,” he’d hummed and had stuck a finger into the damaged snowball, melting it before her eyes. She’d watched him, interested enough but childishly unaware of the abnormality of his abilities. Thinking about the irony of her dislike for snow, he’d tried to explain it to her. “It’s a good thing I’m sending you to Heaven. You certainly wouldn’t be very happy if you dethroned me.”

He’d commanded the warmth he’d send forth to return to him as he talked, watching as the puddle of water refroze around his finger. “The Ninth Circle is where traitors go which is why I live in the center of it.” he explained slowly, “My throne is made of ice and my palace is surrounded by a frozen lake.”

Belled had sucked on her thumb and frowned, weary of him now that he’d brought the hated ice back.

“Believe me,” he’d said, mercifully reheating the water until it seethed and vaporized, “it’s a lot colder than this in the center of hell.”

Since that day on the porch, the Dark One had felt other treacherous feelings churn underneath the coals of his heart. He felt them flare when Belle called his name and light up the shadows when she smiled at him. For a while, he’d tried to curb them, to burn them away, but he hadn’t had any success. Forced to confront his affection for the tiny creature in his charge, he had decided that it might even be useful to care for the child. After all, he was trying to keep her from going to hell, and what was his good-will towards her if not more fuel for this plan to succeed.

A plan that he’d more and more convinced himself was easy to accomplish.

After all, she had been so well-behaved those early few months that he’d found himself bored out of his mind most days, and once he’d begun taking her on frequent walks to Storybrook’s park, sea or lake side, even strangers had started commenting on how extraordinarily well-behaved she was.

He sighed.

Apparently, this phase had ended for good.

“Please, Belle, one more spoon,” Mrs. Potts currently tried to reason with his charge, moving a spoonful of potatoes towards the child’s mouth in a stop and start motion. “Toot, toot, it’s a train!”

His housekeeper was a stocky, good-natured woman of around sixty. She wore a traditional french uniform to work that made her look as if she’d stepped out of a children’s book from the nineteen hundreds. Her uniform entailed a ridiculously puffy hat, specifically shaped for the purpose of looking grabable to toddlers, and normally, Belle adored her. Not today, though.

“NO!” Belle’s little face looked angry and distorted as she protested loudly and shook her head, careful to keep moving and to not open her mouth for too long. “NO FOOD! NO!”

Mrs. Potts looked exhausted, her face shining under a thin layer of sweat.

“I think we’ll just leave it for now, Mrs. Potts,” Gold said, wanting to give the poor woman a break, “I’m sure she’ll want more in an hour or so.”

“But Mr. Gold,” his housekeeper admonished him without any bite to her voice, “If we let her dictate when to eat, her schedule will be all over the place.” Nonetheless, she turned away from Belle and set the plate of mashed potatoes on the counter beside him, her quick capitulation betraying her tiredness.

“Which is why this is an exception,” he replied teasingly and winked at her. He stepped around the older woman and sat down next to Belle. The girl was still having a fit, squashing left over peas with her fists.

“NO FOOD!”, she shouted again, not realizing that the fight was already won. He felt a few drops of spittle hit his chin.

“No food,” Gold agreed and stroked her hair in a conciliatory gesture, but Belle was too upset to acknowledge him, her little eyes narrowed with crankiness.

For a while, they sat in silence, with only the occasional clinking of dishes interrupting the quiet as Mrs. Potts tidied the counter behind them.

The kitchen was flooded with natural light, big windows along two of its walls making its pots and pans gleam where the rays of the sun hit their metal surface. Two years ago, Gold had chosen the house for its openness and brightness, hoping to acclimatize Belle to a heaven-like atmosphere at an early age. He hadn’t expected it to calm him as much as it did, in fact, the obvious effect of the sunlight on his mood at times felt embarrassing and painful to him. Lucifer, the bringer of light, the shining one, fallen from the sky near the beginning of time and _still_ missing it.

He suppressed a self-deprecating snarl and tried to rouse himself from his dark musings.

It was a nice day outside, he thought matter-of-factually, and sunlight was good for people’s souls. Maybe he’d take Belle to the park after her nap. But before that, she’d need to eat and for that he’d have to change her mood. He turned towards her with renewed strength.

“What do you want to do now, Belle?” he asked, hoping to lift her spirits through distraction. “Do you want to look at a book?”

He could see that the mention of books almost got her, her little eyebrows lifting, blue eyes glancing into his direction for a moment. It wasn’t enough, however, and she soon fell back into her sullen temper, shaking her head and looking away from him.

“Hm,” he nodded knowingly, keen eyes taking notice as Mrs. Potts left the kitchen.

Once he was sure that his employee was out of hearing distance, he leaned towards Belle and put his elbow on the table, propping his arm up in a ninety degree angle so that the toddler could see his hand but couldn’t reach it. Slowly, Belle looked at him, her eyes reluctantly curious, excitement growing on her face.

“What could we do now, Belle?” he asked her, his tone teasingly clueless.

Belle watched him, clapping her hands when nothing happened. Then, her face lost the rest of its grimness.

“Fire!” she called out, putting her hands over her head in an artless imitation of his own posture and looked at him impatiently. “Fire hands!” she whispered excitedly.

“What, do you mean this?” Gold questioned, simultaneously letting a ball of fire appear in his hand, “Do you mean these fire hands?”

Belle squealed with joy, infinite happiness lightening up her face, her fat baby cheeks showing dimples as she laughed. She leaned forward in her chair and pressed herself against it, trying with all her might to reach for his hand.

He let the flames vanish, looking at her sternly.

“No, no,” he said, and shook his head at her, his demeanor calm but firm, “We don’t try to touch the fire, Belle.”

She nodded but looked disappointed. As she sadly watched his empty hand, he let the flames flare up again, licking at his fingers. Immediately she was laughing again, and for a while he indulged her by playing around with heat and oxygen so that the flames in his hand rapidly changed in color and size.

Then, they heard footsteps approaching the kitchen and he snuffed the flames out with a gentle blow of his breath.

“I swear on all that is holy,” Mrs Potts exclaimed breathlessly as she entered the kitchen, busily dragging a vacuum cleaner behind her. “It always smells like something’s burning in here.”

Gold pulled an unsuspecting face and Belle giggled.

“I’ll talk to Lumiere about it,” he promised.

They both watched as Mrs. Potts crossed the room on her way to the dinning hall, huffing and puffing under her heavy load.

“Food!”, cried Belle happily and slapped at his arm, her warm fingers sticky on his skin.


	4. Night Fever

_4 Years ALE_

Gold cursed when he materialized in front of the hospital, realizing that he couldn’t go in for at least another ten minutes, and even then he’d have to hope that Mrs. Potts was too distracted to question his unrealistically early arrival.

Frustrated, he paced around the parking lot, amazed by how slowly time could pass. Four years ago, he wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told him that he’d ever think in minutes again. Now, time was a creeping burden, the only thoughts in his head centered around Belle. How was she? Was she scared because he wasn’t there? Was she in pain? He cursed, wishing he had never left for the shop. But how could he have known? When he’d left her she’d been sleeping and her fever had been much better. Mrs. Potts herself had assured him that he needn’t worry so much. For the last few days, he’d been sitting next to Belle’s bed like her personal gargoyle, and his housekeeper had clearly wanted him to leave the house for once.

_And since when do you listen to mortals, you fool!_

Gold felt guilt roar up inside him, a jet of flame that burned into him grimly, stabbing him with its fiery tongues. Due to Belle’s illness, he hadn’t been to the shop for days, and he’d thought it would be good to see if everything was in order, the worth of his inventory growing more and more as he kept collecting artifacts from around the world. He’d been eager to look at a Venus figurine he’d purchased rather recently, planning to restore it to its former beauty. And because of this old pile of burned dirt, he had acted as if his little project was more important than her, as if some worthless antiques could be measured against her health. How had he been so stupid.

The second that ten minutes had passed, he strode through the doors of Storybrook’s hospital, making a bee line for the receptionist.

“Gold, Samael,” he told her, materializing the adoption papers as he pulled them from his actual, human suit jacket and throwing them in her general direction. “I’m here to see Belle French.”

Not waiting for her to reply, he turned and strode into the direction of the ICU, hearing her protests subside as she gave up on running after him and read the papers. Mrs. Potts had told him where he could find her, and even if she hadn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered, human souls as easily detectable to him as blood to a bloodhound.

When he found them, Mrs. Potts was already standing in front of the door, her face white as chalk. She was talking to a young doctor who had a serious expression on his face and as the man heard Gold’s rapidly approaching footsteps, he looked up to greet him.

“Mr. Gold?”, he asked, wanting confirmation. “Belle’s father?”

“Yes,” Gold affirmed, not caring to clarify specifics at the moment.

His housekeeper gave him a sympathetic look, laying a hand on his forearm in a gesture of support, and the young man, whose name tag revealed him as one Dr. Whale, nodded tersely.

“There is no way to sugarcoat this, Mr. Gold, your daughter is very sick. We cannot, at the moment, make any definite statements regarding her recovery.”

“What does that mean?” he asked irritably, “You can’t tell me how long she’ll have to stay?”

Dr. Whale inhaled a deep breath, looking down at a chart in his hands. He was clearly uncomfortable.

“Unfortunately, we don’t know if your daughter will survive the night, Sir,” he said slowly, “If she does and her fever settles, we’ll likely be able to make better predictions in the morning.”

Gold froze.

Middle-earth wobbled around him and for a shocking second, he felt as if he’d dematerialize against his will, but he quickly amassed himself, his human form shaking under the pressure. As if he’d suddenly returned to the Ninth Circle, he felt his insides grow cold, the air around him becoming significantly cooler as the Devil lost his fire. The pressure of Mrs. Potts’s hand on him, just a moment ago irritatingly firm, was now nearly undetectable. Slowly, the incessant ramblings of Dr. Whale drew him back to reality.

“… case you need it. We also have a residing psychologist, Dr. Hopper, if you’d prefer a less religious form of support.”

“How is this possible? She was fine this morning.”

“Mr. Gold, fevers can be unpredictable, especially with small children. There is always a chance that-”

Realizing that no relevant information would be coming, he ignored the man, leaving him and Mrs. Potts in the hallway as he followed the faint scent of Belle’s soul into her room. She was lying on her back and looked smaller than when he’d first found her, deeply asleep. Gold saw three different needles inside her. They were feeding her saline solutions and medication from bags next to her bed. Silently, he stepped closer and carefully reached out to feel her forehead, shocked as her skin burned against his palm with all the heat he was lacking. Her usually so vibrant soul felt weak, no more than a soft pressure in the air. Deeply troubled, he collapsed into a chair next to her bed, one hand covering his mouth in disbelief.

_This can’t be._

Mrs. Potts had followed him into the room and sat down in the chair next to him but otherwise remained silent, Dr. Whale nowhere to be seen.

_It won’t happen like this. It can’t._

He kept feeling for Belle’s soul, the low, iridescent shimmer of it his only focus while doctors and nurses entered to check on her, to adjust dosages and take temperatures. Minutes turned to hours, shadows rising around them as darkness fell upon Storybrook - a darkness he was supposed to reign over, powerful and menacing. Yet powerful was the last thing he felt, sitting motionlessly, frozen in his chair.

Eventually, he didn’t know how long it had been, Mrs. Potts stood up from her seat, groaning as her stiff limbs protested against the sudden movement.

“I’ll get us something to eat, Mr. Gold,” she announced warily, clearly expecting him to protest. When he didn’t, she knew no better than to argue anyway. “You’ll need to eat something while we wait.”

 _Wait_.

Gold felt sick, but he nodded anyway. He wanted her to stop bothering him and be left to his silence, Belle’s soul so weak that there was no room to multitask. For a while, she had whimpered and writhed in her sleep and Mrs. Potts had called the nurses to change her leg compresses. But now Belle appeared terrifyingly still on the big mattress, her breathing shallow and irregular, her little chest barely moving beneath the thin, white linen they had placed over her.

_It looks like a death bed._

“Shut up,” he growled at the voice in his head, glad that Mrs. Potts was gone when he realized that he’d spoken aloud. For a moment, he pondered if he should ask her to pray for Belle when she came back but then he discarded the idea. When had the Old Bastard ever listened to anybody and who knew if this was his doing, anyway. Not every plague came from God and he rarely smote people dead.

Additionally, this particular death wouldn’t make any sense. If Belle died now, God’s plan would fail, and his stupid prophecy would become nothing but a bad poem. This was a lowly virus, one of God’s creations gone wrong, nothing more. Everything was going to be fine, because this was nothing more than a scare, one of those difficult pruning phases of an infantile immune system that he had read about. Hell, the girl was fully vaccinated, what more could one do?

And anyhow, he was the Devil, the Lord of Destruction, so surely, he would have been the first to know if a deadly pestilence had entered Storybrook. This? This was merely the flu, nothing deadly, nothing to get panic-struck about. Millions of children got the flu every year and in the realm of modern medicine hardly any died of it. He leaned back in his chair and told himself to relax, to take a deep breath, his fists unfurling at his sides. He felt ridiculous, chastising himself for worrying like a mother hen.

Then, a shiver ran through Belle’s soul and he watched as the edges of it frayed like old cloth in the air, vanishing into a fuzzy blur. The heart monitor next to Belle’s bed started breathing out a long, endless beep and he heard an alarm ring out in the hallway, its scream deafening.

Gold vaporized into the void.

“Jefferson!”, he called out, his voice heavy with panic. “JEFFERSON!”

“Yes, my Lord,” his servant answered, suddenly appearing before him, his signature hat pressed to his chest as he bowed. The Dark One didn’t care for courtly etiquette.

“She is dying!” he shrieked at him, all the while trying to think of something to do.

The Hatter nodded, visibly pleased. “Yes, my Lord. My congratulations.”

“No, you imbecile!”, Gold screamed, desperate to make him understand, “She can’t die!”

“What, why not?” Jefferson looked utterly surprised, his eyes clueless, eyebrows lifting to his hairline. “Her soul is spotless, my Lord, she’ll go to Heaven as surely as a saint.”

“But not now,” Gold protested. His core felt like a stone in the Cocytus, dense and glacial as he became frantic. “She was supposed to die in eighty years! She was supposed to grow old!”

He watched as doctors crowded around her tiny body, busily wielding electrical currents as her soul was slowly drawn from middle-earth. He saw Mrs. Pott in the doorway, people in white coats pressing past her, a hospital tray dropped at her feet.

Jefferson still looked confused. “I fail to understand how her age is relevant to the plan, my Lord.”

The Devil burst, exploding as his atoms fused in fury. Walls of smoke crashed into his servant as he roared, a fiery beast with horns and scales. Demons in all dimensions sought cover as drums of thunder crashed through the void.

“IT IS RELEVANT TO ME!”, he boomed, his voice reverberating in a horrible wave of heat and pain.

Jefferson had curled into a ball, shaking at his feet. “My Lord, I- I don’t know what…,” he whispered, terrified, certain that he would be snuffed out at any moment, “There is nothing-”

“Has there been word from above?” the Beast interrupted him, scales rattling with helpless rage “This cannot be their plan. They want me dead!”

“No, my Lord, we - we haven’t heard anything.”

“THEN GO AND ASK!”, he thundered again, making worlds rattle like cabinets of china.

Jefferson disappeared, and the Beast held on to the fabric of space with all the strength he had in him, claws aching as time slowed to a crawl.

In agonizing slowness, he heard Belle’s rips crack as the doctors tried to make her heart beat, listened to Mrs. Potts’ sorrowful scream. To his horror, in the depth of this chaos, he could suddenly feel Belle.

She felt lost, her new form entirely unknown to her. Instinctively, he reached for her, but was barred at the last moment, darkness forever separated from the light, just as God had created it. Aching with pain, he heard her soul call to him, lonely threads of light, confused and scared.

As the Hatter reappeared, he looked even paler than before, clutching the rim of his hat with white knuckles.

“It seems to be an unplanned event, my L-”

Gold had decapitated him before he could finish, fury and grief raging through his core. Belle’s soul was hanging by a thread, the single, golden string floating in the air, light and pure. He felt himself shatter, splinter into sharp pieces of blackened rock. He knew that these were her last seconds, so he hovered close to her, surrounding her in tender puffs of smoke, intend on saying goodbye, on giving her comfort.

She cried out for him, barely a twinkle.

“Goodbye, Belle,” he sobbed, watching her grow dimmer. “I promise you’ll be fine, sweetheart.”

_You threw me to earth, now you’ve thrown me into hell._

Then, there was light and Gold saw the light; saw that it was her. He leaped with relief, pieces of black rock melting into lava, doctors calling for space as they supplied her with oxygen. He watched them care for her, watched her soul as it knit itself back into place.

The void fell silent, demons hesitantly daring to breath as their master did the same, his liquid fire calming like the sea after a storm. If not for the heat of him, there would have been tears on his cheeks. What had happened? He stared at her soul, watching as it danced like a flag in the wind, its smell once more drifting through space. Never before had he felt so light, yet so empty.

A nurse called him, disturbed by his absence.

Numb, he materialized into the hallway behind her, answered her call and nodded as she gestured for him to follow her. Mrs. Potts had almost fainted, and now she was getting terribly upset again as the medical staff made both of them sit and wait, not letting them come along as they wheeled Belle away for further testing. While Mrs. Potts assumed he was in shock, Gold just sat quietly, looking into space with a thousand-yard stare. Unblinkingly, he kept his eyes on Belle’s soul, watching it glimmer and pulse with a light that reassured him.

This wasn’t a normal recovery.

Belle’s soul looked less weak than it had when he’d first arrived in the ICU, and he knew well enough that the souls of the recently resurrected weren’t normally this bright. So, he concluded, the only possible explanation was that God had worked a miracle to smite the virus, no doubt a costly one at that. A happening of this scale, this close to irreversible eternity? It had probably killed a few people somewhere else. But everything had its price, and it appeared that the Devil’s Undoing was quite valuable to those above.

“Thank God”, he muttered, numb with exhaustion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I just wanted to quickly tell you how thankful I am for your comments, they really keep me motivated! It's great to know that I'm writing for an actual audience, haha.
> 
> Devil!Gold is in deep trouble now with that weird human fixation he's developed!


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